CAMPUS LIFE: HARVARD; Student From Latvia Anticipates 'Freedom'

When Natalya Tsarkova registers for classes at Harvard College tomorrow, she will be the first student from the Soviet Union to enroll in a degree program at an Ivy League school. She will have missed by only a few days being the first at any American college.

''Up to the end, until I got off the plane, I couldn't believe it could happen,'' said the 19-year-old Miss Tsarkova. ''My parents told me there must be some computer mistake.''

Soviet undergraduates who study in the United States have done so only on exchange programs that have lasted no more than a year.

Unlike the Soviet Union, where education is ''very narrow and specialized,'' she said, exchange students in America have the opportunity to study anything. Hopes to Be Journalist

Miss Tsarkova is a transfer student from the University of Latvia in Riga, where she was a mathematics major. She will be a sophomore at Harvard, where she hopes to major in social studies, a combination of philosophy, government, history, economics and sociology. ''I was shocked when I found out I could do that,'' Ms. Tsarkova said.

She is interested in a career in journalism and hopes to write for The Harvard Political Review, which is affiliated with the Kennedy School of Government.

''They might be interested in my ideas about politics, and they can help me edit my stories,'' she said. ''Maybe in a year I can write for The Crimson,'' the campus newspaper. ''I never tried to write an article in English.''

What is Miss Tsarkova looking forward to most in her college career?

''Mental freedom,'' she said. ''I want to be independent, free to express my ideas. You can say what you want at home, but the problem is, if a person wants to change the system, a person educated in that system cannot change it. You need independence in your mentality and your thoughts.'' 'An Opinion on Everything'

Michael Rinella, a 1985 graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, encouraged Ms. Tsarkova to apply to the university when he met her in Latvia in May 1988. He was a member of an international-relations delegation for emerging leaders in the United States and the Soviet Union. While eating dinner with Ms. Tsarkova's family, he said, ''she really caught my attention.''

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''Natalya was just a very spirited and delightful person,'' he said. ''She had an opinion on everything. It was clear that she was very bright.''

Miss Tsarkova mentioned that she would like to study in the United States. Mr. Rinella contacted the Harvard admissions office and ''basically started the process,'' he said.

Miss Tsarkova applied just as any other student would and did not even escape the widely used Scholastic Aptitude Test for admissions. She also took a test in English as a foreign language in Moscow from an American teacher visiting there.

The professor paid the test fee for her, Miss Tsarkova said, because she didn't have American money. Later she received a $5 check from the Educational Testing Service, which administers the test, for overpayment. This was the only American funds she had with her when she arrived in the United States on Aug. 18. She has been staying with a Latvian family in New Hampshire since then.

Olga Grushin arrived from Moscow on Sept. 2 and enrolled last week at Emory University in Atlanta, becoming the first full-time four-year Soviet undergraduate in the United States.

The ruble is not convertible to hard currency, so a Soviet citizen like Ms. Tsarkova coming to the United States needs almost total financial assistance. With a combination of scholarships, loans and work-study jobs, Miss Tsarkova said, she will be able to cover the $19,000 cost of tuition, room and board at Harvard.

Miss Tsarkova, whose parents are mathematics professors in Latvia, is unsure of what she will do when she graduates. But she relishes the idea that it is her right to choose. ''I have to decide whether I'm going back or not,'' she said.

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A version of this article appears in print on September 10, 1989, on Page 1001051 of the National edition with the headline: CAMPUS LIFE: HARVARD; Student From Latvia Anticipates 'Freedom'. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe